There’s a tendency in marketing to put the cart before the horse, as the saying goes. Driven by metrics and tangible outcomes, clients will request websites, sales decks, a logo, or other one-off pieces of collateral. As the Director of Brand Strategy at Studio Science, I’ve seen that the biggest cause of this surface-level thinking stems from treating your product the same as your brand. It’s an easy mindset for any business to fall into, especially for early-stage B2B SaaS companies. While yes, these are all things we create at Studio Science, and important assets to have, these requests too often come through while missing a crucial component: a brand strategy. A brand strategy driven by insights and tied to the emotional goals of your audience will allow you to anchor your brand to universally understood ideas, which enables your marketing assets to be vehicles for storytelling. Your assets signal to your audience what you stand for, and allows people to quickly identify if you can meet their needs or if there is a shared value system. Meeting your audience at this level leads to brand trust and loyalty. So how do you know if your company is falling into the trap that so many companies fall into? Here are some signs this might be the case for you:
Do any of these sound familiar? If so, it might be time to step back, define your brand’s purpose, and align your entire team and organization around a brand strategy. But how do you do that? Brand Strategy At Studio Science, we view brand as the experience people can expect when interacting with your business. Providing a consistent experience across all mediums requires strategic design. When creating a brand strategy for businesses, we start with the following.
We look broadly at the brand’s business. We consider your current market category, competitors, adjacent market categories, and aspirational organizations. We look to a wide range of audiences, from thought leaders to analysts, prospects to current employees. Many of these audiences are often overlooked, but this goes back to our belief that a brand is more than a product. Therefore, you should engage with a wide range of stakeholders and not just those people who use your product. And of course, there is the core of who you are. We ask about your mission, vision, and values and what you can provide people that no one else can. This is another area where we often hear companies say we want to be the “Kleenex” of our space. If you don’t have a reason for existing outside of selling more of your product, this should cause you to pause and think deeper. More and more people are expecting brands to stand for something. All of these inputs serve as critical context for a strong brand strategy. At the end of our engagement, it is natural to want to understand the ROI of your investment. There is some work after a brand strategy that needs to take place to apply the work to different touch points and the brand’s identity. As that happens, I would encourage you to consider your team’s efficiency. Are they now equipped to apply the brand across all of your channels? After it’s implemented, I would check in with your customers. Can they identify and quickly understand what the brand is about and if it aligns with their needs, values, and beliefs? In my experience, few organizations are thinking this way. Most just see low conversion rates and think they need a new website. While it can be easy, especially if you’re an early-stage B2B SaaS company, to confuse your product with your brand, don’t make that mistake. Let Studio Science help you see the difference while scaling your business. Contact me at kelsyspaeth@studioscience.com, and I’ll get you properly prepared and off to the races.
